President George W. Bush's attempt Friday to silence critics who say his administration manipulated prewar intelligence on Iraq is undercut by congressional testimony given in February 2001 by former CIA Director George Tenet, who said that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or other countries in the Middle East.

Details of Tenet's testimony have not been reported before.

Since a criminal indictment was handed up last month against Vice President **** Cheney's former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his role in allegedly leaking the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters in an attempt to muzzle criticism of the administration's rationale for war, questions have resurfaced in the halls of Congress about whether the president and his close advisers manipulated intelligence in an effort to dupe lawmakers and the American public into believing Saddam Hussein was a grave threat.

more here:
http://www.pubrecord.org/politics/95-tenet-testified-in-2001-iraq-not-a-threat.html

Itz all hussiens fault

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, etc. All criminals. Keep Guantanamo open just for them. They don't deserve to remain on American soil.

HOw many people actually believe they are 'innocent' of manipulating prewar intelligence on Iraq?

Rush Limbaugh maybe?

Testimony in Feburary 2001. Let's see (if my math is correct here)... the election was in November 2000, Bush inaugurated January 20th, 2001. In office a whole month? Intelligence comes from the previous administration that early.

Better keep a cell available for Bill Clinton while we're at it.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/18/iraq.political.analysis/

From Feburary 18, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear," Clinton said. "We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors."

"At the same time, by about a 2-1 margin, people say if the U.S. does attack, its goal should be remove Hussein, not just to reduce Iraq's capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and threaten its neighbors."

They don't call em "double standard democrats" for nothin... bon appetit and try not to choke on the facts.

The difference, my friend, is that Mr. Clinton did not take us to war based on the evidence he had.

Too bad history and the facts don't support your assertion amigo. What would you call his (Clinton's) bombings of the aspirin factory in Sudan and the cruise missle attacks in Afghanistan? Acts of war (and/or to distract the public from the Monica Lewinski problem).

"In its most recent comment on the issue, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said last week the administration stands by its initial justification for the bombing. He said evidence suggests that bin Laden was seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, for use against American targets. He said Empta, used to make chemical weapons, was found outside the al-Shifa facility."

"The statement by the law firm said the U.S. government has retreated systematically from declarations that high officials made two years ago to justify the attack on the plant, "except for the claim that a chemical component of VX nerve gas known as Empta was found in a soil sample taken by a foreign agent near the plant."

"It added that a study commissioned by Idris found no trace of Empta in the ground soil and drainage sludge at al-Shifa but instead found evidence of common pesticides with "chemical similarity" to Empta."


http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/khartoumbomb.html

Well i'm glad we're amigos, amigo. There's a huge difference between an "act of war" as you call it, and invading and occupying another country. If Junior had just listened to his old man, who had quite a bit of experience in this area, this whole mess would have been avoided.

Junior was not much of a listener to anyone.. Night Jimmy!!

what the CIA says and what is actual is two complete entities.
The fact still remains that Iraq posed no threat and was illegally invaded an occupied, it doesn't matter if Clinton agreed or The pillsbury dough boy.

Bon ami, acts of war are acts of war regardless if it's solely bombing targets of a sovereign nation (who didn't attack us) from hundreds of miles away with cruise missles or having boots on the ground. By definition, Clinton committed acts of terrorism, naked aggression, and war crimes. Just like acts of war, one can't get a little bit pregnant either. One may make a valid arguement that Bush merely inherited the Iraq/Afghanistan problem from Clinton (it's been shown in this thread that all the same players/information were involved under the Clinton administration).

Obviously Clinton and Bush believed Iraq/Afghanistan were considered threats and now Obama is complicit and accessory to these perceived "illegalities". Time to build a bigger prison to include every single member of congress who voted to approve and fund these missions as well. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse". We wouldn't want to accuse anyone here of hypocrisy or having double standards now would we?

but clinton was leaving office

that does not mean he was not involved in manipulating the intelligence that the next president would be basing his decisions on

we must (or at least should) be fair on the possibility of this

and when the intel came in on osama being a threat clinton did not act on it

thus clinton's hands are not necessarily clean of the mess in the bush administration

actually it wasnt illegal

Saddam signed a surrender treaty to end Desert Storm. He violated every single term of that surrender. Especially with the ongoing policy of firing anti-air missiles at American and British piots flying to enforce the northern (Kurdish) and southern (Shia) "no fly zones" (UN mandated)

we were obligated to take him out of power based on that alone

yep